Old Favourites Dressed Fancy

There’s something luxurious about a long lunch. Settling into our plush booth at Fennec Kitchen and Bar, we exhale, taking a moment to survey the surroundings. Soaring plate glass windows on the restaurant’s north side reveal the hard angles of downtown streets and office towers. Inside, the restaurant’s boho industrial flair — warm with copper tones and an extravagant floral mural — enfolds us as we flip open the soft leather cover of the menu and prepare to be indulged.

Open for almost a year, Fennec is nicely crafted after its namesake, a tiny, adaptable fox. Tucked into the lobby of the HSBC building at 101 Street and 103 Avenue, its offerings are rooted in a tight selection of shared plates, with a couple of robust mains to anchor the move from day to night dining. Service is attentive, yet unrushed, for those who have time to linger over bites and conversation. Office workers on their lunch hour, however, have a swift selection of handhelds to choose from, with sandwiches such as Alberta-raised chicken with brie and caramelized onions on house-made bagel-bread available for sit-down or take-out. There is a sweet little coffee bar within the office tower entrance to the restaurant for grab-and-go drinks and sandwiches.

This is the third in a burgeoning group by longtime local restaurant owners Josh Meachem and Dominique Moquin. The others are Coterie and Boxer, though Boxer’s rooftop patio could almost stand as an establishment of its own. Fennec is upscale yet approachable. Executive chef Preston Hamilton, whose training includes a stint at the acclaimed Cambridge, Ont., farm-to-fork eatery, Langdon Hall Hotel and Spa, jokingly describes the fare as “Elevated Grandma.” His focus on favourites with finesse is clear with the spaetzle, which sees German-style noodles blanketed in parmesan cream sauce with spring peas and slivered mushrooms, sourced locally from Mona Foods. We add the lamb meatballs, fragrant with Middle Eastern spices, as a side dish.

You would be foolish to deny yourself the house-made bread and butter that changes regularly according to the creative whims of the chef. We savoured both the crusty sourdough focaccia and the brioche topped with sesame seeds on repeat visits to Fennec.

Carrots are not a sexy vegetable, but Hamilton surprises with an inventive execution of the underappreciated taproot. Braised and served with a gochujang glaze, the carrots leave a dab of heat on the tongue that is countered by a cooling concoction of whipped lemon feta. Keep an eye out for the chef’s rotating spin on a Fennec staple — seasonally prepared Italian burrata. We didn’t have room for the summer burrata with juniper-infused strawberries, but had the burrata with pistachio-tarragon pesto during an earlier visit. It was delicious.

The short rib, available at dinner, is a stand-out dish. Unstintingly portioned and resting confidently on a bed of gnocchi, the short rib is braised for 18 hours in beef stock and then lacquered with cola and tonka bean. Redolent with the aroma of warming spices like clove and cinnamon, the meat is fall-apart tender, and we just gave into it. It would have felt ungenerous not to extend that same consideration to dessert, so we doubled down on the sticky toffee pudding.

Hamilton is a third-generation chef and baker, and inspired by his father’s recipe, the pudding was more bread than cake, featuring layers of torn croissant studded with dates and baked to a crispy finish. The smoked toffee sauce with its hint of sea salt begged for balance, and there it was: a dollop of crème fraîche to amiably settle the score.

This article appears in the October 2026 issue of Edify